Super Tuesday: ‘Not the end all be all’ of 2016 election

This past Tuesday was the election tradition known as Super Tuesday. “Super Tuesday” refers to the day which happens every presidential election cycle, which is responsible for the most primary elections in a single day. 12 states and one United States Territory around the country went out to vote on Tuesday, March 1, including Alabama, Alaska, Virginia, and American Samoa.

The tradition of Super Tuesday began in 1988, when 20 states held their primary elections on the same day, according to PBS. Democratic politicians believed the South was not given proper influence in the presidential election because Southern states were so late in the primary calendar. They felt their votes did not matter, as the candidates we already all but decided by the time their primaries were held. Super Tuesday was a way to let the Southern states have more of an influence is the final candidates.

Since then, the results of Super Tuesday have, in general, been an accurate foreshadowing to the final candidates. Most of the time, whomever wins the most states during Super Tuesday, will go on to represent their party in the election.

Jasper Larioza, senior, believes that Super Tuesday is a good tradition for America to keep.

“I think that the tradition of Super Tuesday lets us voters look at the chances of a candidate in either winning or losing at the current moment,” Larioza said.

Super Tuesday is often a predictor of the actual presidential race, since the days favorites almost always continue on to be their respective party’s nominee. Larioza disagrees with this trend, however.

“I think that Super Tuesday isn’t a deciding factor because there is still a great amount of time between Super Tuesday and the nominations that each party has,” said Larioza. “Looking at history, Super Tuesday wasn’t the deciding factor, especially during 2008’s Presidential Race. I think the results of Super Tuesday was expected at a certain extent.”

The example Larioza is referring to is the 2008 Democratic nominee. In 2008, Hillary Clinton swept the Democratic vote on Super Tuesday, yet, Barack Obama still received the Democratic bid for that election. Therefore, Super Tuesday is not foolproof. Generally, however, some candidates will drop out of the election following Super Tuesday, if they feel they have no future in the race. After this year’s Super Tuesday, Ben Carson, having not won a single state, dropped out of the race because he felt there was no reason to continue.

This year’s results were as follows; For the Republican Party, Donald Trump received 7 states, Ted Cruz received 3 states, and Marco Rubio received 1 state. For the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton received 7 states, narrowly beating Bernie Sanders by 1 percent of the votes in Massachusetts. Bernie Sanders received majority votes in only 4 states.

With primary elections in many states still to come, Super Tuesday is not the end all be all of the 2016 election.